The Conclave of Shadow (7 page)

“It has not been tried.” La Reina's wings rustled as she leaned forward. I had to force myself to meet her gaze. The wings remained as fascinating as they'd been to me at the Academy. Whenever they caught the light coming through the wall of windows facing the bay, I forgot my suicidal trance of the previous night, forgot the pin gouging into my head, and had to struggle not to stare in slack-jawed wonder. “How could it be? Even with the nodes collected by Professor Trent, you are the only sorcerer I know of who might construct such a ritual.”

“Am I?” I murmured, shooting a glance at Abby. Her tight-jawed glare was fairly easy to decipher. We both knew I wasn't the Ace my grandfather had been.

“The pattern of the sigils you identified the other day bear similarities to other known rituals,” Sadakat said, pulling up the pictures on her tablet. I tensed, but they had no effect on the veil between the real world and the Shadow Realms. I'd surmised after considering the invasion of my home that it was due to the medium. Any power the sigils might contain seemed to be diminished when they were etched out in pixelated light. “La Reina and I believe we can modify a ritual used to summon and contain demons, replacing the Enochian speech and scripts with your Shadow dialect.”

I wiped a cold sweat from my upper lip under the guise of pondering the problem. “That still doesn't explain how it might work. As I understand it, Asha is from Alam al-Jinn. She isn't of the Shadow Realms.”

La Reina and Sadakat exchanged a puzzled look. I suspected they assumed I should have known the answer to my own question.

“We already have Asha's name. Professor Trent's nodes will help us target her through any misdirections she might have set up,” Sadakat explained slowly, like a student answering a professor's question when she expected a trap. “Your translations will open the path to the proper realm.”

“We realize that it may take a few tries, if that's what you're getting at, Mystic,” La Reina said, far less patient with my obtuseness. Her lips twisted in a sardonic sneer. “Only the Lord is perfect.”

I raised both brows at the level of cynicism in those words, but I didn't dare ask any more questions. Every word out of my mouth was another potential break in my already precarious disguise. I resisted the urge to deepen the shadows around my face even further. “I'll need some time to look over your ritual and make the translations,” I said slowly.

“I'll send it to you.” Sadakat shut down her tablet as though the matter were decided. “And I'll secure the Academy's rooftop. In the wake of the attack, the location has resonance with both the Shadow Realms and Ms Asha.”

She left with La Reina. Abby's glare kept me from leaving with them.

“I am truly sorry about the tone policing,” I said.

“Oh, we've got bigger issues than that.” She shut the door, pulling me close. Even then, her whisper was little more than a tickle of lips near my ear. “You have no idea how to do that translation, do you?”

I took a breath. Let it out with puffed cheeks. “No.”

“Masters–”

I forestalled the inevitable – and possibly deserved – dressing down with a raised hand. “I am perfectly equipped to address the verbal. Less so the written, but I would not have agreed if I didn't have a possible solution.”

“Possible?”

“Two. If the first does not succeed…” I swallowed down a swell of anxiety and prayed that my first solution would work.

Abby's drumming fingers on the door frame indicated a disheartening lack of faith. She blew out a breath, much as I had. “Fine. Is there anything I can do to help?”

I considered Sadakat's comment about resonant spaces. I'd never considered such things before, but if I was going to pretend like I could do real magic, perhaps it was time to start considering the structures and practices of same. “Actually, yes. Do you recall the Pagoda Palace?”

Abby snorted. “Kind of hard to forget it.”

For both of us. “Might you be able to get us in after hours?”

T
he restoration
of the Pagoda Palace had jump-started a wave of gentrification in the slice of the city between North Beach and Cow Hollow – the last run-down area this side of Soma. The vintage theater was now the center of a growing hub of niche eateries, eclectic shops, and trendy bars. Only the bars were still open when I arrived to meet Abby. I'd shed Mr Mystic and twisted that damned hair pin straight with vengeful glee. My shoulder twinged as I approached the dark ticket booth – phantom pain, born of nostalgia. That wound was three years – or eighteen years – healed, depending on which timeline of my life I calculated by.

Either way, I'd come a long way from those early Mistra days. Now to see if I could prove that to Abby.

She opened the frosted glass front doors as I approached.

“No lock picks this time?”

She held up a fist. Opened it. A ring of keys jangled, catching the orange light from the street. “Argent might not be able to get us into Pakistan, but they can still swing a privately owned local business. I only need picks when I'm trying to be low profile.”

I twisted my hair, glancing nervously around the darkened lobby. The concessions stand had been retrofitted – new popcorn machine, tablets instead of registers, and the soda fountain had a digital display. The rest of the darkened lobby had gotten a decor refresh. Nile-green carpets climbed up a central stairway that split into two wings up to the mezzanine lobby. The walls were painted cream and the same pale green, with copper trim and moldings branching out in the delicate, dragonfly curves of the Art Nouveau movement.

“I didn't think I needed to specify that I'd rather Argent wasn't involved.”

“I'm an Ace, Masters. We're involved. But don't worry. Dunbarton's so giddy that Mr Mystic is helping us that she's being extra careful not to scare him off with looming. Your secret's safe.”

I mounted the stairs. The banisters had been replaced, their brass fittings jarringly out of place compared to the copper that shone everywhere else. “Speaking of looming, I'd rather do this alone.”

Abby ignored me, following me up to the mezzanine. “That's nice. Not gonna happen. What are you planning on doing?”

When Abby and I had met the first time, the mezzanine had been home to a loaned exhibit from the Asian Art Museum. The display cases were long gone, replaced by swoop-backed fainting couches in a slightly darker green than the carpet. I sat cross-legged in the middle of the space and pulled out a stack of Post-Its with sigils scrawled on them in thick black Sharpie. “Something like the summoning La Reina wants us to do, but it's–” I broke off in exasperation when Abby sat cross-legged in front of me. “Fine. Don't blame me if you end up feeling like you drank curdled milk.”

I took a few deep, meditative breaths and began laying out the Post-Its in the order of the sigils at the Academy. With each successive sigil in the chain, the veil between realms trembled, stretched. I focused on Shadow, on a particular shadow, shaping it with my thoughts into a familiar form.

As I set down the last Post-Its, I channeled that sense of familiarity and connection into a whisper. A name. “Templeton.”

The whisper fell from my lips and into my lap. Abby shrieked and scuttled back until she was pressed against one of the green divans.

I leaned over the bulky form now squirming in my lap, snatching up the Post-Its before something else could take advantage of the thinned veil to slip through.

“What. The hell. Is
that
?” Abby snapped, voice trembling from either anger or fear. Possibly both.

The furry form tumbled out of my lap and righted himself. I couldn't help myself. I smiled. “This is Templeton. You've met before. Heya, Templeton.”

“Hello, Missy!” Templeton nuzzled my wrist, so of course I had to yield to his request for scritches. He squirmed under my hand, lifting his muzzle so I could reach under his ears and behind his jaw. His crooked little rat claws flexed in the carpet. Someone had fastened a leather gauntlet around his front leg, and three jewels glistened in the molded leather setting – a knob of coral, a cracked opal, and a water-smoothed chunk of green glass. They were the only spots of color on a pitbull-sized rat made of pure shadow.

Abby had recovered herself enough to get to her feet so she could press against the wall. “I remember a rat-thing. I don't remember it being so… so…”

“Big?” I asked before she could hurt Templeton's feelings. Her hand was pressed against her side – where she usually wore her gun, I realized. I frowned at her. I tried to sympathize – I did! – but the presence of shadow just didn't affect me the way it affected most people. Especially not with Templeton. He was mine in ways I was only beginning to realize the extent of.

“Yeah. Sure. We'll go with ‘big'.”

Well, I'd warned her. I focused on Templeton, still gazing up at me with all the adoration of an abandoned puppy. “It has been so long. Where have you been?”

I resisted the urge to hug him again. “Here. Well, San Francisco.” I recalled the name the Lady had given. “The Gumshan? I tried calling you–”

“Oh. I haven't dared come near the Gumshan. Not with the Shadow Dragon so upset with me.” He tugged on his gauntlet and glanced around nervously, as though he feared lurking dragons.

“You don't have to worry about him anymore. He's gone to ground.”

Abby cleared her throat and gave me a pointed look. I made a face at her and got down to business. “Templeton, I need your help. Do you know how to write the Shadow speech? Like this?” I showed him a few of the Post-It notes. I'd deliberately used the neon orange, pink, and green sheets – anything to encourage him to focus.

He sniffed the sheets, turned one eye then the other on them. His claws scratched across the surface of one orange sheet, sending tingles up my spine at the sound of claws across paper. His whiskers drooped when he looked up at me. “No. I'm sorry, Missy. I don't know what you mean.”

Well, it was too much to hope that the easy solution was the right one. I scratched his head to let him know I wasn't upset with him. A thought struck… “What about… do you know of someone called the Lady? She's–”

“No.” Templeton cowered back from my touch. He snatched up his tail and began gnawing on it. “No,” he said around his tail. “I don't know anything about the Lady. Can I go now?”

I was so surprised by his reaction that I nodded. “Of course. You never have to ask. Do you need me to–”

He scurried into the darkness underneath Abby's divan before I could finish my offer. Abby squealed like a cartoon damsel and hopped on top of the seat. I pressed my cheek to the carpet and peered into the darkness, but Templeton was gone back to the Shadow Realms.

“Well, that was unnerving. And pointless.” I stood, frowning at the shadows where he'd fled. “He lied to me.”

“About the language?” Abby asked.

“About the Lady,” I murmured, wondering why. Wondering what it meant. Templeton had only ever been that afraid of one person. Lung Di. Which didn't give me confidence for my next plan. “I think you should go now.”

Abby climbed down from the divan. “Hey. I'm sorry if I insulted your friend.”

“That's not why you should leave.” I sat down again and shuffled my Post-Its back into order. “Templeton was my kinder, gentler option. I'm about to try something much worse.”

“W-worse?” Abby hesitated for all of two seconds. “I'll… wait outside.”

I considered my options as her footsteps receded down the stairs. I'd entertained the possibility of calling the Lady, hoping that name alone was enough to get her attention without offending her. But after Templeton's reaction…

The front door opening and closing shook me from my musings. Better the devil I knew than the one I didn't. I began laying out the Post-Its.

“
W
ell now
. Isn't this an unexpected meeting? Hello,
Lung Bao Hu Zhe
, my stalwart champion.”

The voice came from behind me. I didn't need to see the speaker to feel the effects of his presence. I wondered if this was how Abby and other people felt in the presence of shadow, a moment of falling, like stepping off a curb they didn't know was there. I scrambled to my feet and turned. I wasn't about to leave my back exposed to this threat. I managed to resist backing against the wall as Abby had. What have I got that she hasn't got? Courage?

That or a dearth of brains
, I thought as I watched my nemesis pace the room, examining the decor, the windows facing out on the street, the posters for a mix of vintage and B-movies. “Lung Di. I wasn't sure you'd come.” I had no illusions that I'd summoned him. Not in the usual sense of forcing his presence. I'd done the Shadow equivalent of knocking politely, not even sure that he'd hear.

“Curiosity compels us all to be unwise at times.” He finished his circuit. He wore his usual – dark business suit, dark shirt, dark tie. He looked like a mobster. Or, given how long he'd been around, maybe mobsters looked like him. He wore one glove covering the hand that he'd injured during our first confrontation. The hand I'd injured for him nearly four years ago. I was surprised that it hadn't yet healed.

He sat – no, lounged – on the divan opposite me, one leg crossed over the other. The leather of his shoes gleamed in the light from the street. “No traps. Given how assiduously Lao Hu hunts the both of us, I half expected you to have sold me out to him. Now I'm even more curious. What could have led you to invite my presence of your own accord?”

I opened my mouth to answer. Slowly closed it, eyes narrowing. Templeton's lie had surprised me, but Lung Di lied like breathing. If he'd really suspected a trap, he wouldn't have come. He knew why I'd called him here. “You know. About the Conclave attack on the Academy of Sciences last week.”